"The Snow Walker" (2003) - Movie Review

What starts as a perfect setting of a right adventure drama picture turns into a desolated and unattached characters failing to make an impact on the viewers. When a man/woman meets nature and only nature with nothing but animals, it becomes survival instincts with new ears for cave man technologies. And Charlie Halliday (Barry Pepper) who supposedly seems to be an arrogant and selfish pilot learns very late in his journey along with a native Kanaalaq (Annabella Piugattak), those technologies and of all the strong character to maintain it.

Being a pilot who fought in World War and also living near the Arctic, it is tough to believe a character like Charlie. I guess the tough lesson the war teaches does not always gets inside all the soldiers developing a character out of them. That is the reason the movies rushes him off instantly towards a flight journey at the start of it. We do not get an entire picture of his personality. On his flight schedule to a remote place where no one generally resides, he encounters couple of natives who offers rare tusks to take a sick girl to his town. He accepts it and on a detour from his original flight plan, mechanical malfunction makes him to crash the plane in the middle of nowhere. With a company who does not even speak his language properly, all he is left with is frustration.

What is strange about him is that a tough hard nut Charlie who has faced near death in War withers in front of wilderness. I would have accepted his frustration after much of failed and wasted efforts. But instantaneously he breaks off, kicks, and screams with insanity. Breaking the only chance of survival and rescue equipment does not appear to be a wise and believable thing to be done by him. He has no intention of tagging along with his new passenger. The anchor of this film is the Kanaalaq. She does not ask questions and instantly gets out of the crashed plane and starts fishing. Charlie looks unbelievable but he does not care. As per his personality he leaves her telling that he will be back to rescue her. We hardly believe him and so does Kanaalaq. Not that he is willing to desert her but by the time he finds any help at all in this land of nothing; her sickness will kill her before that. As expected the nature gets the better of him and Kanaalaq comes for his rescue. This is the moment of capitalization. This is the point where in there should be unspoken emotions and striking events of bitter truth to be faced. Neither they nail it nor do they hopelessly screw up. And that puts the viewers with an emotional question mark.

Sure there develops slow and steady bond in between these two when they are fighting together for survival. Still there seems to be a void of emotion in between them. There are no strong points of events which make us really feel their desolation and the birth of friendship. We believe only due to the reasoning of ourselves being in a position like that. It is the place where even the worst enemies create a bond. All you have is lots of time to hunt, eat and think about the miserable helpless situation you are in. When some one does that, their entire ego sheds away and a new independent strong character gets born. Charlie does not spend with his enemy or a friend. Kanaalaq is some one who does not have grudge or affection towards. She is just a baggage initially. And slowly he learns from her techniques of patience and skill to survive in this wild.

The film does not bore but at the same time does not engage us either. It is something which goes entirely on its own frame of pace and dullness that we never make an attempt to connect with it. Neither does the movie to reach us and make the real search of soul in those characters. When Kanalaaq does the unthinkable and Charlie in a situation like that accepts the concept of no hope, we stare and feel nothing. Somewhere “The Snow Walker” never capitalizes those solid pieces of drama to navigate and survive along with him.